Free Darkness Arisen by Stephanie Rowe

was to get away from her influence. He would be doing no one any favors if he died, and now that Ryland was convinced she was one of the Order's three guardian angels, she would be well-protected.
    So she was safe. It wasn't his job to protect her anymore.
    But as he got further away from her, a sheen of sweat broke out over his skin, and his head began to pound. His muscles were so taut that they pulsed with pain, like an invisible cord was binding him to Alice, and it was stretching to the breaking point.
    Ian fisted his hands and lowered his head, as though he were fighting a hurricane force wind trying to stop him from leaving. He focused on things that mattered: the cold metal of his father's ring, his connection to a family that was long dead, a father who had died because of what he'd done, and what he had to fix.
    There was a loud splash that made Ian jump, and instinctively, he spun around, searching the water for Alice. She wasn't at the rock where he'd last seen her. Panic hit him before he found her at the base of one of the massive black rocks further out to sea, stretching at least a hundred feet out of the water. She'd clearly decided the first one hadn't been far enough offshore, and had struck out for one further away.
    The splash had been Ryland hitting the water, and his hard body was striking fast against the waves as he swam after her.
    Alice glanced over her shoulder at Ryland, and Ian saw her stiffen when she realized she was being pursued. She tore her gaze off Ry and looked up, searching the shore. She saw Ian, and for a split second, his heart stopped beating, sucked into the depths of her being. The air seemed to go utterly still, and the sound of the crashing waves went silent, until all that remained was Alice. She froze, her fingers digging into the black rock, her body undulating softly as the waves pushed her around. Her blue tank top was plastered to her skin, and her long hair was cascading down her back. She looked small and vulnerable out there, a tiny thing in a massive ocean, clinging to the base of a black rock that loomed so high and threatening.
    She was a woman with a death sentence on her head...just like him. Destined to die.
    Shit. They were the same. At least in that way. Involuntarily, Ian took a step toward her, then stopped. Jesus. What was he doing? She was too dangerous to him.
    Alice shivered and then tore her gaze from his. She turned her back on him, and started to climb the rock. She was struggling to ascend, and for a split second, she wavered, and he thought she was going to fall—
    His mind suddenly flashed back to the first time he'd seen her. It had been when he and his teammate Elijah had been closing in on the trail of the warrior who had cursed his great grandfather. After hunting him for so long, Ian had scented victory and been so close to his prey...until Alice had come tumbling down the side of a massive cliff that was too damned reminiscent of the rock she was currently trying to climb. She'd jerked him instantly and completely from his single-minded focus on the wizard. He'd had no time to react or think. He'd simply leapt beneath her and caught her, breaking her fall before she crushed herself on the rocks...
    Holy shit. His adrenaline kicked on as he finally connected the facts...realizations that had eluded him because he'd been so busy trying to stay alive. "Son of a bitch," he muttered. "She was there." Alice had been there, in that abandoned, stark section of high desert, when he'd almost nailed Warwick Cardiff, the black magic wizard who had cursed his family. Did she know him? Could she find the wizard for him? What was her connection to the wizard? Or had it been a fluke?
    Fragments of information began to circle in his mind, pieces that didn't quite fit. Suddenly, Ry's evasiveness made sense. "Hey!" He broke into a run, sprinting after his teammate. "Ryland!"
    The Order of the Blade member didn't even look back.
    "Ry!" Ian called out his mace with